


Weak

by unknownlifeform



Series: Mako green and Dust gold [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Nibelheim (Compilation of FFVII), Pre-Canon, Warning: Hojo (Compilation of FFVII), Young Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform
Summary: Daemons are human weakness. That was what Sephiroth was always taught. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was not.
Series: Mako green and Dust gold [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801477
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Weak

**Author's Note:**

> Finally coming back to this series after having this story drafted for uh, way too many months. Hope it's come out sufficiently painful, let me now

Daemon evaluation training took place three times a week, unless Sephiroth had some other tests planned for the same time. Sephiroth would be given lessons on the most common kinds of daemons, the behavior of the animals they took the shapes of, what one could gather regarding their humans.

Professor Hojo said daemons were human weakness. They made humans more vulnerable than any other animal, because harming the daemon also harmed the human. He said that it wasn't the priority for Sephiroth to learn in depth daemon reading, because it was more useful for Sephiroth to master other skills firsts. He also said, however, that Sephiroth should have the knowledge, so that when it was time for his daemon to settle, she would settle as something useful. Capable of defending herself in battle.

Sephiroth wasn't sure how he was supposed to make that happen. He wasn't the one who decided what form his daemon took. She always looked like whatever she wanted.

When Sephiroth was seven, he was sat down and given a class on nocturnal birds. He was tired, they'd made him do endurance training all day. He wanted to go to sleep. Instead, he sat at the desk, and tried to focus on the video he was being shown.

Owls were solitary birds. Depending on the species, they could be territorial. Someone with an owl daemon would value their privacy and rarely be a gregarious person. Many owls were non-migratory, a sign of a preference for routine. Many were monogamous, which could be connected to loyalty to one's principles. Predatory animals, as a general rule, often indicated a strategic and rarely reckless mind.

Maybe it was that Sephiroth was so tired, but as he watched the owl on the screen descend on an unsuspecting mouse, he couldn't help but think that there was something scary about them. Those too big eyes, the talons. A ghost descending on you in the dark.

Professor Hojo would have scolded him if he heard Sephiroth say it out loud. Animals were nothing but animals.

***

"Stand still until my call."

Sephiroth didn't answer. Speaking without permission was forbidden.

His daemon also stayed still. She sat by his side in the form of a cat, waiting.

"Now, start walking," professor Hojo said.

Sephiroth did. His daemon remained still. He put distance between the two of them. One meter, two, three. Six meters was the average length for a human-daemon bond. He kept walking past that, and until he felt the painful tug in his guts that meant he had reached the end.

"I'm at the limit," he said.

Professor Hojo nodded, looking down at the distance Sephiroth had covered. "Eleven meters and a half, one more than last month. Very well, very well."

The bond between Sephiroth and his daemon had been steadily increasing in length over the last few months. When they had first started being measured, they could only go a little more than five meters from one another. That distance had doubled in the span of six months, and it was growing faster.

Sephiroth didn't know why it was happening. Professor Hojo kept saying it was fascinating and a remarkable result, but he never told Sephiroth why. He never explained anything. He always said Sephiroth was special, but he never said why. He never told him why they did all their tests. He hadn't even answered when Sephiroth has asked him, one day, why his eyes had slit pupils, when no one else did.

Supposedly, Sephiroth was _better_ than most people. That was why Professor Hojo always got so angry if Sephiroth's results weren't up to his standards. Sephiroth had to succeed in everything, and less than perfect achievements were not acceptable.

"Try stretching it a bit further," Professor Hojo ordered.

Sephiroth wanted to say no. It hurt when he stretched his bond, it hurt more than when the doctors gave him strange injections, or that time he had fallen and broken one of his arms.

He did anyways, because he was not supposed to say no to professor Hojo.

He took a few more steps, and the tug started to become painful, like he was trying to rip something out of him.

"One more step," Professor Hojo said, when Sephiroth stopped.

"It hurts," Sephiroth said. On the other side of the room, his daemon was shaking.

"I said. One. More. Step. Do it, boy."

Sephiroth did. It  _hurt_ .

"Twelve meters and twenty centimeters. Excellent. You may move closer now."

As soon as Professor Hojo said that, Sephiroth's daemon turned into a sparrow and flew all the way to Sephiroth's shoulder, perching there.

Professor Hojo clicked his tongue. "And work on controlling yourself better."

Sephiroth lowered his head. His daemon wasn't supposed to rush to him that way, they both knew that. Not even if being apart had been painful. They had to behave better than that.

***

The battlefield was chaos. Sephiroth's ears were ringing with the sounds of explosions, and the stink of death was clogging his nose to an unbearable degree.

Intellectually, Sephiroth knew death did not have a smell, unless one wanted to consider putrefaction, and it was still too early for that. Yet, he didn't know how else to describe this mixture of blood and gunpowder and other things it was better not to think about too much.

He cut down Wutai soldier after Wutai soldier. The first time he had been sent on a battlefield, he had felt something in his stomach churn painfully. He hadn't been able to sleep at all the following night. Maybe it had been the adrenaline that still had been running in his body. Probably.

But then, it had turned almost mechanical. Repetitive. Parry. Stab. Duck. Cut someone down. Try not to get too much blood on himself. After the first five minutes, Sephiroth always seemed to slip in a strange state of mind, one where he was almost as if watching himself fight.

All these Wutai people armed to the teeth had to be at least ten years older than him, but they were also so easy to kill. So slow. Almost clumsy, with the way they held their swords, or so it seemed to Sephiroth. Were they not trained? Was Sephiroth really that superior, as he was told?

Somehow, he didn't feel all that superior.

He felt... dirty.

Well, he _was_ covered in blood and dirt. It wasn't wrong of him to feel that way. It would take him so many showered to scrub himself clean.

A group of Wutai soldiers pointed their guns at him. They were shouting something at him. Sephiroth was being taught the common language of Wutai, but it was a large country, with many languages, and he did not speak this one.

"Monster!" a Wutai man shouted, switching to the tongue people spoke in Midgar. "Monster! Monster eyes-"

The man pointed at them, going back to his language.

Sephiroth's eyes, yes. This man wasn't the first to find them strange.

He had never been called a monster before because of it.

Sephiroth did not have time nor desire to listen to these people's screams. They were going to die. Those were Sephiroth's orders. There was no point in waiting, or hearing those words.

They fell. One after the other, unable to defend themselves from Sephiroth's sword. They died with faces full of anger, and screaming at him words he did not understand, but that he could guess. _Monster, monster, monster_.

He was no monster. He was human, and he was better than most humans. Monsters were beasts, disgusting things to be exterminated or locked in professor Hojo's tubes to be experimented upon. Less than human, less-

Sephiroth fought them with teeth bared in a way he was not supposed to. It was bad form, to make that sort of face.

The last man died when a shadow came down from the sky, grabbing his little frog daemon with cruel talons, ripping her to Dust.

Sephiroth's daemon had walked with him as a wolf for most of the battle, but at some point she had turned into a bird, attacking from above and quickly flying out of reach if someone tried to catch her. The shock of seeing her fly so far from Sephiroth always made enemies stumble. It was a good trick to use.

She was now a huge owl, with talons that could shred someone's face and eyes that let her see with ease in the evening dusk.

Sephiroth turned, breathing hard. Was the battle won? The last Wutai soldiers he could see were engaged in combat with Shinra ones, falling one after the other.

Good. A victory. That was good.

Sephiroth wanted to be away from this place as soon as possible. Away from all this... blood, and death, and voices. He needed... He needed to clean himself from all the dirty sticking to his skin.

"Sephiroth."

He turned, hearing his daemon's voice. She was perched on some sacks of sand, a makeshift barricade the Wutai army had built. "What is it?"

"I settled."

Sephiroth's eyes widened. An owl. Some kind of eagle-owl, large, with horn-like tuft feathers on her head.

In his mind, he immediately started to weigh the pros and cons. The talons would be a good asset in battle, as well as the excellent vision in the night. On the other hand, she would have to avoid close combat with large daemons, a dog or large feline could easily tear the soft bird skin. Of course, staying out of reach wouldn't be a problem for her, she could easily fly to a safe position, Sephiroth had already thought before about how a winged form would be the best compliment to the advantage the unusual length of their bond brought-

_Monster. Monster eyes._

His daemon blinked at him. Huge, huge orange eyes.

"Come," Sephiroth said, and raised his arm high.

She landed on it easily. Her talons broke his skin. Not on purpose, but they were long and sharp, and the uniform Sephiroth had been given left his arms bare. He would need to get some kind of protections, if he were to carry his daemon this way. Leather, maybe, some kind of falconry glove.

It would be logical to carry her this way. She couldn't walk, not at his speed at least, and it wouldn't be practical for her to fly after him in a closed space. He would have to get used to her weight.

It was just the simplest way. He wasn't... growing weak, or too attached. He wasn't touching her just for the sake of it.

***

Some papers were dropped on the desk in front of Sephiroth.

"What is this?" he asked.

"You are to be the new face of the Shinra army, you have to read through this," professor Hojo said. He seemed annoyed by something. Sephiroth hoped he had not been the reason for it.

Sephiroth skimmed through the papers. His eyes fell on what seemed like a list. A list of names.

"What is this for?" he asked, showing Professor Hojo the paper.

"That? Do you really need to ask, isn't it obvious boy?"

It wasn't.

"They want you to pick a name for your daemon. Supposedly it will make you more marketable, or something."

Professor Hojo went on mumbling something about his disagreement, but Sephiroth tuned him out. He looked down at the list instead.

A name for her? He knew daemons had name, usually, but she had never been given one. Because she wasn't supposed to be important. Human weakness. Sephiroth was not supposed to entertain his weaknesses.

He was surprised he had been allowed a  _choice_ . Even if it was from a list, it was a lot more choice than Sephiroth ever got usually. He read and re-read the names, trying to find one that would fit.

He didn't know how to choose. Should he ask his daemon for one she liked?

"Hurry up!" Professor Hojo snapped.

Sephiroth read the list again.

"This one," he said eventually.

_Yakira_ , the name read.

"I like it," she whispered, perched on the back of his chair.

That... that made him happy. For some reason.

***

"Sephiroth? Are you Sephiroth?"

Sephiroth turned. That, he felt, was a stupid question. Were there many other young SOLDIERs with silver hair and an owl daemon around? He was pretty recognizable.

There was a SOLDIER Third Class standing in front of him. _Most_ SOLDIERs were Third Classes. The program had only entered the final phase, with the public being asked to volunteer for it, during the last few years. Not many had reached the status of Second yet. No one had already made it to First.

It was rather obvious to everyone that Sephiroth wouldn't have to wait much before receiving that promotion.

Given he was a Second, and this boy was a Third, Sephiroth felt he should have been spoken to with a little more respect.

This Third, on the other hand, did not seem worried about his lack of manners. Sephiroth didn't think they had met before, he couldn't remember any red haired SOLDIERs. A new recruit, maybe.

The boy – he had to be Sephiroth's age, more or less – grinned. "And here I thought you'd be taller."

Sephiroth frowned. "Is there a problem?"

"No, no. Really, I like being taller than the Sephiroth," the boy said. Taller, yes, with all the lankiness of a teenager who had just hit a growth spurt.

A magpie daemon was perched on his shoulder, tilting her head to look at Sephiroth. An intelligent bird, but also loud and territorial. It spoke of a resourceful, smart person, but one that was prone to anger, and possibly too curious for his own good. Surely not a particularly respectful boy, in this instance.

"Genesis!" A second boy walked up to them, also in a Third Class uniform. "Sorry, my friend hasn't quite gotten the hang of hierarchy yet."

"See that he learns, then," Sephiroth said.

The red haired boy rolled his eyes at the other, and then turned to Sephiroth again. "My apologies, _sir_. My name is Genesis Rhapsodos, and this is Melpomene," he said, and made a sort of bow, his daemon cawing on his shoulder.

His friend took a very deep breath.

Sephiroth frowned. "That is not a required greeting for a superior officer." Was this Rhapsodos new enough that he hadn't even been told about that?

He left the two. He had better things to do.

***

Sephiroth found himself being assigned on more and more missions with the two Third Classes. The boys showed significant skill for their current rank. Assigning them to the same tasks as Sephiroth was a test to their abilities, and at the same time the best assistance Sephiroth could have if he needed it.

Genesis had a remarkable talent for Materia, and his quick mind worked well to find solutions to unexpected problems. Angeal, for his part, was skilled with both the sword and hand to hand combat, and was capable of keeping his cool under pressure. Neither of them were on Sephiroth's level, but they were definitely above average.

They were also _strange_.

Sephiroth knew they had grown up in the same town and had been friends since childhood, which maybe explained their behavior. They would frequently mock each other and push each other and Angeal's Nora would start chasing Genesis's Melpomene around with the promise of a nasty nip, but they didn't seem to truly get angry about it. They would be arguing one moment, and the next one they would be laughing together.

Sephiroth didn't understand it. He didn't get why two people who constantly discussed would be friends and spend so much time together. He didn't know a lot about friendship, to be fair, but he was told friends were people who went along well, not... argued all the time.

Then again, friendship was not something he was meant for. So he was told.

They were on the truck that would take them to the location of their mission, and Genesis was loudly reading from that book he always kept with himself. Loveless, that was the name. A classic of literature, apparently, but Sephiroth had never received much of an education in the arts. They were irrelevant on a battlefield.

Although, if he kept having to work with Genesis, he might end up memorizing it against his own will.

"Do you ever get tired of reciting it?" Angeal asked.

Genesis ignored him, simply raising his voice. " _Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul. Pride is lot, wings stripped away-_ "

"I know, I know, you've already read that part too many times."

Melpomene cawed loudly, drowning out Angeal's voice, and Genesis kept reading.

Angeal shook his head, but a small smile was on his lips. "Idiot."

Sephiroth frowned. "Why are you friends with him?" he asked.

"What?" Angeal said, turning to him.

"You have different interests. You disagree on a lot of things. You called him an idiot just now, and you do so regularly. He annoys you by always reading that-"

"Sephiroth, I'm _teasing_ him," Angeal said, as if he was saying the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm teasing. You know, teasing? I call him an idiot but I'm joking. Well, sometimes I think he's acting like one but..."

Sephiroth failed to see the point of it. Why would Angeal say offensive thing to Genesis without meaning it?

"Sephiroth, have you ever had friends?" Angeal asked.

"No."

Angeal made a strange face at that. "Why?"

"It was not necessary."

Angeal was still looking at him with that expression, one Sephiroth did not recognize but made him feel somewhat uncomfortable. As if he was studying him, trying to gauge what his next move should be.

Yet another way in which Angeal and Genesis differed. Genesis was impulsive. Angeal was calm, always pondering his next course of action. A boy with an eagle daemon, a raptor, surveying the world from above and only plunging down when the prey was there. Thoughtful, carefully considering what to do before actually doing it.

"Alright. Alright," Angeal said eventually, turning.

Sephiroth didn't know what that meant.

Genesis was looking at him, frowning, but turned back to his book when Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at him.

Later, after the battle, Nora came to perch near Yakira and asked if she wanted some help preening her feathers. Preening was a given thing to do, a battlefield dirtied feathers and put them in disarray. An additional beak would help, probably.

Yakira declined. The offer made her uncomfortable.

A little away from them, Melpomene and Nora were helping each other fix their feathers. Sephiroth had not seen a lot of daemons being that close to one another. He didn't understand why they did it. Or why would he have received that offer.

***

"Yakira?"

"What is it?"

They should be asleep, both of them. It was late in the night, and she may be a nocturnal bird, but they had to wake up early in the morning.

Still, Sephiroth struggled to fall asleep. He had a lot of thoughts, as of late. Too many.

"Why do people hold on to their daemons?"

"Why do you ask me?"

"You're a daemon. I thought you might know."

Sephiroth couldn't remember ever doing it. He remembered wanting to do so, but never actually following through with it. He had always been told he couldn't.

He had just spent three weeks on an especially rough battlefield. There had been many losses on their side. He had seen many people clinging to their daemons, whether they were on their last moments of life, or safe at the camp, holding on to their daemons as if it would hurt them not to.

Angeal's company had come back victorious, but decimated. Angeal's face had been dark. Later, when Sephiroth had went to see him in his tent for a report, he had found him hugging Nora. Birds should not appreciate that kind of action, and yet she seemed to enjoy it as well.

"I think it's just a right thing to do."

Sephiroth frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Touching daemons is-"

"For the weak? Is that what you want to say?"

Sephiroth turned to her. She sounded angry.

"Who says it is? Hojo and all his scientists? They pull my feathers and fill you with strange injections and make us stretch our bond. They make us go through test after test, and it never leads to anything. I don't believe anything they say. Not anymore."

Sephiroth swallowed. Her feathers had puffed up, the way they did when she felt threatened. She had started to say things like that for a while now, resenting all the scientists that used to tell them how to act.

Sephiroth didn't know what to believe. He was told he was better, destined for great things. He might be Shinra's military commander, but he did not always feel all that better. If anything, he felt _strange_. Like there was something between him and other people, that stopped him from truly interacting with them. He didn't understand it.

What he knew was that no one else seemed to have lived the way he did. Raised in a lab, being experimented on day and night. Everyone else in SOLDIER complained about the injections and procedures as if they were the worst thing they had ever experienced, when those were just what Sephiroth's childhood had been like. He could not imagine what others said life was like, growing with parents and siblings and playing with other children and breathing fresh air.

He barely even knew what his mother's name was.

If he was so much better, why had he had to go through all of that? All the experiments that no one else had had to suffer? Was all that pain supposed to make him stronger? Was he only special because scientists had tampered with him since he was born, would he be just a normal boy otherwise?

"Come closer," he said.

Yakira tilted her head, on her perch, but did as asked. She hopped on his bed, stopping near his chest.

Tentatively, Sephiroth brushed his fingers down over her chest. Her feathers were soft, this he knew. She clicked her beak, lowering her head. He brushed his fingers there then, making a line on her head. She blinked.

Nothing strange happened. He was just touching her. The feathers would not feel different if they belonged to any regular owl.

But somehow, it made Sephiroth's chest feel lighter.

***

"You are due for a haircut, boy," Hojo said, clicking his tongue.

Sephiroth glared at him. He was getting tired of Hojo. Of all his tests and demands and comments. The more time Sephiroth spent out of the labs, the more he was growing to resent them and all the people that worked in them.

"I disagree," Sephiroth said, tucking a few stray strands behind his ears.

"And what? You plan on making it grow?"

"Yes."

He had never thought about it, but now he wanted to do so. Just to spite Hojo.

"Teenagers! Well, who cares, now come with me."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I said so."

"And if I say no?"

Hojo appeared at a lack of words for a moment. It was a good look on him.

Then, he grabbed Sephiroth by his arm. "Don't play games with me, now get-"

Hojo's words trailed off with a yelp. Yakira had bitten his daemon on the soft, vulnerable skin of her hand.

For a second, Sephiroth was almost as shocked. Then, he wrenched his arm out of Hojo's grip, and ran off.

"He'll make us pay for it," Sephiroth said, when he slowed down, taking the elevator to get away from the labs.

He had gotten a strange sense of excitement rebelling that way. One that was quickly being replaced by dread, thinking of what his punishment would be.

Yakira, perched on his raised arm, nipped at Sephiroth's hair. "I don't care. I'm tired of doing as he says."

Sephiroth agreed. There was a time when Hojo was the authority, but Sephiroth knew better now. There were other people now he responded to, be it the President or Lazard. Sephiroth had to obey them, but so did Hojo. He was no longer the one who called all the shots.

Saying no to Hojo was terrifying, and it was fantastic.

Yakira, for her part, was not scared of him. She seemed almost proud of Sephiroth. It wasn't something she had ever been, when they were younger.

They spoke more often now than they used to. As children, Yakira had often been silent and withdrawn. Now she could be talkative, and sassy. She even played around with other daemons sometimes.

It was the opposite of how they had been taught to behave. Weakness. But Sephiroth found himself liking it.

***

Sephiroth left Lazard's office, trying not to let his anger out on anything around him. It must have been clear that he was struggling to contain his feelings, because everyone in the hallways avoided him.

This made no sense. It already had been shocking to know Genesis had defected. Genesis could be volatile, but he was also loyal. Despite his prideful personality and his tendency to dramatic outbursts, no one had ever doubted that he served Shinra. He wouldn't have made it to Commander otherwise. Many times he had complained about the company or the assignments, but he had always in the end swallowed his anger and followed his orders. No one had expected him to rebel in such a way, not Sephiroth, not Angeal.

But _Angeal_. Why would Angeal even think about doing this? He had been as shocked as Sephiroth, if not more, when he had found out about Genesis's actions. SOLDIER was Angeal's entire life. He wasn't Sephiroth, who had never had much of a choice when it came to his career, and he wasn't Genesis, who wanted glory and recognition. Angeal was a SOLDIER for the sake of SOLDIER. He truly believed in the program.

It made no sense for him to ally himself with Genesis. What for? Loyalty to his friend? Angeal had never had a problem before calling Genesis out if he behaved in ways that went against Angeal's principles.

Angeal was honorable. He was an eagle. Genesis might have had a magpie for a daemon, a creature known for being a thief, but the eagle was universally recognized as a symbol of honor, pride, loyalty.

Sephiroth hit the elevator's button stronger than he normally would. That line of thinking was idiotic. Daemon analysis should be based on objective observations, on the clear and irrefutable reality of the animal's behavior. Symbology was to be discarded as unreliable. Eagles did not have a sense of honor, magpies did not have an understanding of the morals implications of stealing. Such associations were extremely variable not only among cultures, but individuals as well.

The fact that Yakira was an owl did not mean Sephiroth was especially wise. Regardless of superstition, owls were not the most intelligent of birds. Were Sephiroth wiser, maybe he might have seen this coming.

Yakira was a silent weight on Sephiroth's shoulder. Sephiroth remembered the first time he had seen her in her form, eyes huge and sharp talons. Something strange and fearsome and-

Sephiroth's fists clenched.

Why had neither of them told him of their intentions?

He thought they were friends. Clearly Angeal must have understood something of Genesis's actions, something Sephiroth didn't. Despite having spent years next to them, sometimes they still seemed alien to him. They had known each other longer, knew things he had never experienced.

Sephiroth... he could accept that. He was different. He knew. He had been told since birth. There wasn't much he could do about it, even if sometimes that knowledge left an unpleasant bitterness in his mouth.

But they could have _talked_ to Sephiroth.

He thought they had trusted him.

***

There was something about Zack that vaguely reminded Sephiroth of his first days of acquaintance with Genesis. Namely, a teenager who spent far too much time bothering him and didn't seem to understand the concept of treating superior officers with the due respect.

That was, however, where the similarities ended. Sephiroth hadn't had much to do with Zack until he got promoted to First, but he remembered Angeal nicknaming him his puppy. The description was rather adequate. The only differences between Zack and his daemon were that Dalia was physically a dog and Zack wasn't. Beyond that, they were the same. Excitable, loud, full of way too much energy.

A strange breed, the pitbull. Sephiroth would have imagined someone like Zack would have had a dog with a more friendly reputation, a labrador perhaps, or something similar. The pitbull was a fighting dog. Zack was a SOLDIER and therefore a fighter, but he was not aggressive.

Somehow, Dalia's happy dog faces were incredibly similar to Zack's own grin. There were moments Sephiroth almost felt the irrational need to look behind Zack and see if he also had a tail to wag.

He was growing on Sephiroth. His aggressive friendliness had put him off at first, but Sephiroth found himself getting strangely fond of the boy.

Maybe it was because if it wasn't Zack trying to befriend him, Sephiroth didn't have anyone else around himself now. His time was spent in his rooms, and he had not realized before how empty his days used to be before he had made his first friends.

"He's too naive," Yakira told him. "Too trusting. It's not good for a SOLDIER."

Sephiroth agreed. Trusting too much was sure to get Zack hurt, one way or the other.

***

It was so easy to cut Zack down. First Class SOLDIER he may be, but he was not even close to a match for Sephiroth.

No one was.

He was special. He had the proof now. It wasn't just something Hojo and his scientists said. Sephiroth was different. He was superior.

"Sephiroth!" Yakira screamed. She flew against him, and he pushed her away. Her talons cut the sleeve of his coat.

"Leave."

"Sephiroth, what are you doing?"

"What should be done."

She grabbed his hair with her talons. "Have you gone mad? This isn't right! This isn't you! It's that thing, it's messing with you-"

"Silence!"

He pushed her, again. The pressure of his hand was mirrored back to him and on his own chest. He couldn't harm her. If he did, he would pay as well.

Weakness. Daemons were a human weakness, one his Mother didn't have to bear. An imposition given to him by his human DNA, the weight Sephiroth had been saddled with. Even Genesis, the failure, the by-product, had been without Melpomene last Sephiroth had seen him. Even he must had understood his human nature was something that only brought him down.

Yes, that was why Yakira's form had always seemed to carry something Sephiroth was not at ease with. For what form could ever be right for him? He was _more_.

He needed to get to Mother. A dizzying urgency clawed inside his ribcage. It had been building ever since he got to Nibelheim. Clearly, even before realizing what was in this reactor, some part of him must have _known_.

The walls around him seemed unreal, dancing around the edges of his vision. The only thing that was clear was the path to Mother. Clear in his sight, clear in his mind. Any other thought but her had been pushed out, and why would he even have other thoughts? Mother was what mattered the most. He knew it now, that this was what he had been born for. Free Mother from her bondage, and help her regain a world humans had robbed her of.

Behind the metal contraption, she was there. Her presence screamed in Sephiroth's mind, drowning out any other sound or awareness, deafening the screeches of the human flaw that was his daemon.

Maybe that was the reason he did not realize the little infantryman was sneaking up on him, didn't manage to avoid the sword coming at him.

Little, suicidal human, but silent as the cat walking at his feet.

Not that such a wound would kill him. An inconvenience, but even the pain was nothing, compared to his duty towards Mother.

When the infantryman came at him again, it was his turn to get stabbed. And for a normal, weak human such as he, that should have been fatal. At the very least, terribly debilitating.

And yet, Cloud Strife fought on.

His daemon, small enough that Yakira could have easily snapped her back with her talons, lunged at Sephiroth's legs, scratching and clawing, upsetting his balance.

Yakira screeched, but did not attack their enemies, as she always had before.

Sephiroth fell.

A shadow plunged from above. Sharp talons outstretched, reaching, attempting to close around him.

The mako enveloped him before those talons could grasp him.

**Author's Note:**

> Daemons featured:  
> Yakira - Eurasian eagle-owl  
> Melpomene - Eurasian magpie  
> Nora - golden eagle  
> Dalia - pitbull  
> Hojo's daemon - human


End file.
